


Of Gods and Monsters, Edda 8: Quicksilver-Eyed Moira

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [30]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Acceptance, Asexual Character, Asexual Moira O'Deorain, Asexual Relationship, Autistic Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, Bisexual Female Character, Blueberry Lemon Tea, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Conditioning, Confusion, Deception, Discovery, F/F, False Memories, Fear, Honesty, Lemon Tea, Lesbian Character, Lies, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Oasis (Overwatch), Pain, Past Brainwashing, Past Mind Control, Poly Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Rebirth, Revelations, Self-Discovery, Shame, Talon Emily "Oilliphéist" Gardner, Talon Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Talon Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, Trans Character, Trans Sombra (Overwatch), Tremily - Freeform, Truth, collapse, emilena, gingerspider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 00:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14841723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Moira O’Deorain has won. Her rivals within Talon destroyed, her trio of loyal Weapons - the Changed and copper-eyed Tracer, the silver-eyed Oilliphéist, and golden-eyed Widowmaker - at her command, to remake the world.And then, one day, one simple suggestion changed everything.This story - a side-step/alternate-ending sequel toThe Armourer and the Living Weapon- will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	Of Gods and Monsters, Edda 8: Quicksilver-Eyed Moira

> _"Strange were the words of your song, and stranger still, the music. Always your song grew louder and louder - but you were not singing it. Who was the singer?"_
> 
> _"The Earth itself sang."_
> 
> _"The Earth?! Is the Earth not in the pit of chaos? Who has ever looked into that abyss, or stayed to listen where there is neither silence nor music?"_
> 
> _"Oh, I have stayed to listen. I have shuddered in the darkness that surrounds it; I have seen the hissing waters and the monsters that devour each other without end. And I have learned why the Earth wails, for even in that maelstrom, I have heard its song."_
> 
> _"Then I, too, would look into the darkness, would hear the thunder of the Abyss, and learn, as well."_
> 
> _"Then come with me. I am going to put my mantle around the Earth, and rescue it, remake it, because I have listened, and even in its pain, and even in its fear, I have learned... that even now, it dreams of beauty."_

_[One year after Angela Ziegler's rebirth]_

"Honestly, dear, I appreciate your ethics, but your personal implementations of our upgrades are a _mess_. It's a... hodgepodge of beta versions, and half of it barely works together at all."

Moira frowned, and looked at the analysis herself. "I feel fine, and have no negative effects - what are you talking about?"

Angela snorted. "I'm not saying you're ill, dear, but you aren't what you could be. Michael was getting up to speed on our research, and suggested I take a look, and I'm certainly glad I did, because the data - as you're so fond of saying - does not lie." She showed her wife a page from the analysis. "Here, see? The errant protein generation alone is going to put a severe strain on your liver and kidneys over the the next three to five years. We should do a cleanup pass on you."

A very small part of Moira reacted with alarm - and a lot of it, an outsized amount, and the rest of her glared at that part of herself, annoyed at its fear. _What nonsense,_ she thought. _Still... we have much going on..._

Angela’s fingers wrapped around her hand, breaking her rêverie. "What're you thinking, Moira?"

Moira shook herself slightly, handing back the report. "I'm thinking about timetables. I shouldn't be... I shouldn't be _offline_ for that long. The situation is, as always, delicate. There’s the board functions to consider, my work at the Ministry, papers to present…”

Angela rolled her eyes at the evasion. "It is, as you note, _always_ delicate. The girls and I will handle the day-to-day, and your staff here is quite competent. And we are not _that_ busy, at the moment." Her lips quirked into a smile. “You’re well past ‘Publish or Perish’, I should think.”

Dr. O'Deorain closed her eyes, and looked inward. _Why am I so afraid?_ she thought. _I am surrounded by allies, by... my family. My wife. Her wife. My niece, my **daughter** , and their wife. Even with Sombra in the fold, I have never been so... safe._

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and opened her eyes. "You're quite right, as always, dear. Let's put together a treatment plan, and see what is required. If it won't extend into the April conference season - we should do it."

Angela smiled. "I've already started one. But I would - as always - appreciate your help."

"Absolutely," the Irish doctor said, bringing up the work plan. _I wonder if my nervousness is a side-effect of all the experimental work. It would be well good to fix that._

\-----

Sombra waited for Angela to leave the recovery room before she revealed herself, her eyes flicking to the window.

“So, everything go okay?”

Angela turned, her smile touched by fatigue but quite satisfied. “Perfectly. The initial sequence changes are quite promising. By the time she wakes up, she’ll be better than new.”

Sombra found herself nodding along to that. _I don’t trust her. I don’t trust **either** of them, entirely, but... I don’t want her to suffer._ “Good. That’s good.” She turned back to the window, watching Moira’s chest rise and fall beneath the sheet. “How long will she be under?”

“Unlike _someone_ I could mention,” Angela observed primly, “she had no desire to be awake through the process. She’ll be kept unconscious for the next few weeks. Less than the time for the full rework, since we’re mostly making corrections and enhancements to the existing structures, but the recovery process will be similar.”

Sombra turned, drawing herself up to look Angela firmly in the eye. “That’s good. Because we’ve got some things to talk about.”

Angela frowned, tilting her head slightly. “I don’t understand.”

“Get everyone together - and I mean _everyone_ \- and when I’m finished telling you, you will.” Sombra let herself sink back into her camouflage, heading back into the shadows even as Angela called her name. 

_Because you need to know, and it has to be now._

\-----

"This... No." Lena shook her head. " _No._ It's not funny, Sombra. No."

"It's true, rápidita."

"It's not what I remember."

"Me either," Emily said, frowning. "She's _always_ been there for me."

"She didn't know _you_ existed, 'til you showed up at Talon as a sniper. And she didn't know _you_ existed," she said, turning to Lena, "until you showed up to pilot the Slipstream."

"NO," Lena shouted. "I _remember_. And so does she. It's _not funny_ , Sombra - lay off."

Angela looked at the hacker, confused. "There are no signs of ... all the memories that I can scan are perfectly normal. All of our memories are, as far as I can tell, entirely organic in nature. And I have access to _all_ of her notes." She glanced up at the first assassin, "Yes, there are ways of repressing memory, of dissociating that memory from the current personality, but... all of these methods leave markers. None of those markers exist in any of us, other than Danielle, and, to a much lesser extent, Emily and Lena."

"One of the many joys of being, as she said once, the first draft," Widowmaker said, and Lena took her hand, quickly, holding it to her own face, nuzzling. "It's okay, love. I'm here." she whispered.

Satya glanced over to Lena, surprise and concern on her face, and the teleporter looked back, nodding, keeping Widowmaker's hand in her own. "Yeh, I knew. I... needed help. Dealing. With London. I didn't want to forget it, or... what I did. But," she swallowed, "I needed to be able to keep going. Just a little distance."

_Ah_ , the architech nodded, understanding, as Lena looked to everyone else. "Mum said time would do it, just as well, but..."

"...it couldn't wait," Oilliphéist said, taking her other hand, looking gently into her eyes.. "I know. I remember."

"All that aside, all of you," the hacker interrupted, amethyst-gold eyes flashing as she tried to keep them on track. "You know I'm good at lying. If I was lying, _you would believe me_. Do you understand that? You _would_. Every one of you." She looked around the room, making eye contact with each person, one after the other, before glancing down, and left, before looking back up. "But I'm telling the truth... and that's why you don't."

Fareeha, in her Oasis Defence Force uniform, leaned forward. "I'm not so sure you're as good a liar as you think you are. But I have to say, I find this... 'truth'... difficult to accept."

"I find it quite impossible," her wife said. "Doctor, does this make _any_ sense to you?"

Dr. Ngcobo, still in his field medic kit, frowned just a little, expression otherwise carefully neutral. "Back in the earlier Overwatch days, I was aware that you and Dr. O'Deorain had... interest, in each other. But I was _never_ aware of Moira having a niece - much less an adopted daughter. And in the last days, when we were working against Reyes and Ogundimu..." He shook his head. "It wasn't something we'd talked about. I would _think_ it would have been mentioned."

"Satya, you've been quiet," Sombra said. "You know what I've been doing."

"I was never an official part of Overwatch, much less the previous Talon," the architech said carefully, having flown in for the emergency meeting. "I have no personal knowledge of any of this, at all. But... I do not believe you have been externally manipulated, and I do not believe you are lying." She smirked, primly, not so emotionally involved. "I can _always_ tell."

"Even that time in Caracas?"

" _Particularly_ that time in Caracas."

Sombra gave her lover a look of incredulity as Satya wore as serene and innocent a smile as possibly imaginable. _Oh, we will talk about this later,_ the hacker thought. _I thought **I** was the wicked one._

"But... if this is true..." Fareeha continued, "Why would she let Angela have this access? Why would she let herself be so completely vulnerable? Her life is in our hands, and she had to know that, and _you_ certainly didn't let yourself be put in that kind of position, Sombra, so... if she is guilty of so much - why would she?"

" _Because she believes it too_ ," she replied, attention snapping back. "Now. I don't think she always did. I _know_ she didn't, back at... let's face it, this is not Talon anymore, if it ever was. But she didn't believe it back at Talon, not when she made _you_ , Widowmaker, and when she made _you_ , Oilliphéist... and when she made _you_ , Tracer."

Sombra slumped and leaned back against the wall. "If anybody here was going to pull off _that_ kind of trick, I'd've thought it would be _me_. But it was her. And she pulled it off so well she pulled it off on herself."

"I've got copies of my adoption records!" Tracer insisted.

"I could fake that in ten minutes," Sombra replied, eyes rolling.

"Mine go back to primary school," Oilliphéist said, frowning.

"Twenty minutes," Sombra countered. "Maybe half an hour if you wanted noodles glued to construction paper. I don't know how to make you trust me, I really don't. But... it's true. If you don't believe that..."

_I didn't want to do this_ , she thought, _but I have to_. "Sorry, Ree. But you need to see this."

She stepped forward, and placed a small holoprojector on the top of the coffee table in the centre of the lounge. "This footage was shot by _you_ , in Egypt. You probably don't remember." And she hit play.

The goddesses and god in the room sat, quietly, watching Pharah's capture unfold, and Tracer stared, confused, _I remember this, it was fun. Why are you so afraid? We were... we were getting you. Away from... why...?_

"If you see me again, run," Fareeha whispered. "Why would I say that? I don't remember... saying that. I don't remember... most of this. I remember the fight, I remember, I was, I was wrong about... but... I don't remember _this_."

"Maybe, maybe, maybe we got some things wrong," Tracer said. "Maybe it wasn't what we thought. But Ree... Ree, you're happy now, right?" She looked to the flyer, desperate. "It's, it's all right now, isn't it? We're friends, yeh? Please?" She teleported over, and took the rocketeer's hand. "Please?"

"I _am_ happy, now," Fareeha said, squeezing Tracer's hand, "and we _are_ friends. But... I do not think it is all right." She looked up to her wife. "I _know_ I love you. I _know_ I always have." And she looked over to Sombra. "Is that also supposed to be a lie?"

"No. It's not all lies. Not that, particularly. You two were kind of infamous, even in Talon."

"I remember," Angela said, quietly, "when I was first reborn. She'd filed an annulment for us."

"She apologised. And has again, repeatedly." Fareeha concentrated, looking back at the video, as it replayed, muted. "And... despite this, I think I believe her."

"I, I think I believe her as well. But... how? How could a woman who would do what Sombra is claiming... how could she?"

"She fell into her own trap," Sombra said. "I don't think she's who she was, anymore. But it's still..." She snarled a little, in frustration. "Look, I came in expecting to find a nightmare. A freakshow of forced family ties and conditioning and... I didn't even know what. Honestly, I expected to be walking into a horror show, and I didn't know if I'd be coming back out."

Tracer took in a long, slow breath. " _That's why_..." and Sombra nodded. "I'm sorry, luv, I... understand it, now."

"It's why she arranged to bring me in, too," Michael said, quietly. "I didn't know what I expected, but I do know it was not _this_."

"Well," Sombra managed a grin, "that, and I actually meant it - we need someone to tell us when to stop."

"So who's unhappy?" Oilliphéist said, suddenly. "I'm not. She's _always_ been there for me. Lena?"

"No! She's my _mum_. She always has been."

"Danielle? Unhappy, anymore?"

"Of course not, ma chérie. Not," she smiled, almost shyly, "...as long as I'm with you both."

"Satya?"

"I am getting to build a better world. I was hesitant, at first - but no longer."

"Lena already asked you, Fareeha. Angela?"

"I've never been happier in my life. We are doing good work here. We are making the world _better_ , and I am _not_ about to stop - whatever else may have happened, I _believe_ in our task."

"Michael? Olivia? Are _either_ of you... unhappy? Do you not want to be here?"

"No," Michael said, first. "You need me. I think the world does, as well."

Olivia started to shake a little, huffing, a little like laughter, and a little bit not. "I..." _I haven't had memories changed. I haven't. I know what's happened. And yet..._ "I... I... I... don't know. I..." _Satya._ "...no," she said, almost against herself. _Satya_ , she thought, again, and then, she knew. "No," she repeated, suddenly sure, if still very much afraid. "I want to be here. But we have to know the truth." She paused, and swallowed, hard, looking over towards the medical wing, where Moira lay, unconscious. "And so does she."

"I think... I agree," Angela said. "I do not know what we will find, but we must explore this. We have some time, and... some of this supposedly false history, or real history, would leave a paper trail. Perhaps we might still find it."

"And when I'm right?"

"Then," the doctor said, "we will do... what is needed, to continue. I love her," she said, sincerely, "The I that I am now... that I loves the her that she is, that I know, _now_. Even if everything you've said is true... that hasn't changed."

Sombra peered into bronze-eyed Angela's eyes. " _Really?_ Even with _all this_?"

"If an... earlier version of her has committed crimes, then they are not the version of her _I_ know, now, and I forgive her for all of them."

"She's still my aunt," Oilliphéist insisted. "Flat out."

"And she's still my mum," Tracer insisted, with surprising vehemence. "I lost my first, I'm not losin' another one."

"You're _all_ nuts," Sombra said, amazed. "All of you. You already know I'm telling the truth, everything else is just formalities, and... you're still doing this? You're just accepting it?"

"Yes," said Angela, almost a little sadly, but not quite. "It's been said, more than once, that the gods must be crazy. And, if we are going to _be_ gods, then perhaps it is only right. Perhaps it is even _necessary_ that we all be just a little bit," she smiled, "mad."

"Next thing you know you're gonna be sleepin' with a horse to make your own steed," Sombra said, shaking her head.

"Nonsense," the goddess of life replied. "You're the trickster, here; that's _your_ job. Mine, now," she frowned, looking again as the video looped, "...is to learn the truth."

\-----

Moira awoke, slowly, barely aware of herself, at first, then slowly aware of her body, which felt... wonderful. So much more even, more smooth, as though tiny amounts of grit had been removed, throughout herself. And then, slowly again, she became aware of someone holding her hand, someone, she knows that hand, she's known it for so long, first small, then larger, first warm, then cooler, her niece's hand, and she squeezed it, and as she did, her eyes snapped awake, and for the first time in months, or in years, or was it months, or was it years, she knew...

...everything.

She threw herself forward, howling with horror, shaking, looking around her, seeing her niec... no. Emily. Emily Gardner's. Silver. Eyes. So full of compassion she did not deserve. To her left, her daught, no, no, _no_ , Lena Oxton, her copper eyes full of the same, equally undeserved, and her, no, not her wife, her, her, her _victim_ , and, and, she howled again, no, no, no, it can't be true, _it can't be true_ , "it can't be true, it can't be, it can't be," but while she remembered everything, everything good and right, everything that should be but had not been, she broke down, keening, knowing what she had done.

"I... I... I have done _monstrous_ things," she sobbed, "...and I _should not_ be forgiven."

"We know," Emily whispered, gently. "We know all of it... but you are forgiven, just the same."

"No!" she cried, "Do not forgive me. I do not, I do, I do not, I do not deserve..."

"There was a you," Widowmaker said, behind her, unnoticed before this moment, "who deserved no such thing indeed. That you... made the earlier version of me, a broken weapon, who could feel nothing but the kill. _That_ you also started making Oilliphéist. But... it was not _that_ you, I think, who completed either of us."

"Mum," Lena said, softly. "I know you're not ready to hear this, but... it'll be all right. We've been hashing it out, while you were being remade." She reached up, and put her hand to her adoptive mother's chin. "Just trust me, please? For now."

"Angela," she looked forward, "I, I, I, am, so, very, sorry. I know you can't believe me, and you shouldn't, but... I am _sorry_."

"I've been inside your head, on and off, for the last two weeks," the Swiss doctor said, slowly. "It took everything we had to bring back the last remnants of your old memories - the ones even you didn't know you still had. The drugs got most of them, but... not quite everything. The rest, we filled in ourselves."

"But I, I still remember, everything else, it feels so real, but I know it's, I know it's..."

"Do they feel different? The remnant memories? The _real_ ones?"

"...yes," she said. "They're like, they're like, sketches. Paper. Like something I read, once. Like... someone else. But I know. It wasn't."

_Just separate enough, then_ , she thought. _Good._ "We've partitioned them, like Amélie's memories in Danielle. Because... as I said, I have been in your head. I know the _you_ that you are _now_." She stepped over, Lena making room, letting her take her wife's hand from her. "The _you_ that you are _now_ is _not_ the you who was before." She raised that hand to her lips, and kissed it. "And while it will not be easy for everyone... we _will_ find a way to work this out. It may take time, but we _will_ do it... my wife."

Moira scanned the returned memories, yes, distinct, but older, she knew, and... more representative of physical reality than anything she had known in a the last year. "Oh, no, Fareeha, oh no, oh... oh, what did I do to you, separating you from..."

She looked up to Angela again, "I've said I was wrong, I've said I was wrong and I thought I meant it, but now I _feel_ it, oh god, what I did, does she know? Please, please tell her, let me tell her, I'm the one who..."

"She knows," Angela repeated. "We all do."

"I do not deserve forgiveness."

"Y'gave me flight back, mum," Lena said, quietly. "That's worth... just about anything t'me. So s'far as I'm concerned - yeah. In fact, y'do."

"You're getting it regardless," Oilliphéist said, at her right. "But not all it's going to be as easy as this. So... you had better start dealing with it."

"Danielle, if there is anything left of Amélie inside you, tell her, I am... I will make no excuses. I was a butcher, and a monster, and I used her, and I did not care."

Widowmaker tried to smirk, but it just came out as a sad little smile. "Like that you, she is... gone. But like this you, I am here. I could not be here, if she had survived, and I am glad to be alive, and so... I live. And so will you."

"But I do not deserve..."

"Deserve," she said, interrupting, "has very little to do with anything. It is merely the truth."

"But..." She struggled for words in the gaze of those golden eyes, weakly gesturing around herself in an attempt to capture it all.

"And what you do with that," the first weapon continued, "will be up to you."

The reborn doctor thought, quietly, for several moments, trying to calm herself.

"Fareeha," she said, eventually. "She, she... should see me, if she wishes. Uninterrupted. Alone. And what she wants to do... will be up to _her_."

\-----

" _Mum…_ "

Moira looked up from her depressive contemplation, and when she looked into her “daughter’s” eyes her throat felt like it was full of jagged shards of glass. “You shouldn’t call me that. We both... we both know it isn’t true.”

Lena shook her head. “Maybe it didn’t start that way. Maybe, once, it, maybe, maybe it wasn't true," she shuddered a little. "But it _changed_. It's real _now_.” She reached up and tapped her chest. “In here? It changed. If you feel it, and you remember it, and I feel it, and I remember it, it’s real.” She reached out, and Moira couldn’t bring herself to duck away from the caress against her cheek, no more than she could when Emily had been by, earlier. “It's real because we _made_ it real.”

Moira opened her eyes, trembling beneath the touch. “I did. False memories, built from suggestions, helped by drugs. A trail of breadcrumbs that your, that _our_ minds followed, creating paths along the way.”

Lena shrugged. “Funny how the brain works, innit?” She sat on the side of the bed, and took Moira’s hand into both of hers. “Remember what happened when I turned sixteen? My birthday present?”

_No,_ part of Moira murmured miserably. _I couldn't've, because I didn’t even know you **existed** when you were sixteen._ But the rest of her drifted, unbidden, to a memory that unfolded from her mind. 

“You... you wanted one of the radio controlled aircraft models. The ones you could build from scratch, and actually fly.” Moira met Lena’s eyes, and waited for her to nod encouragement before she spoke again. “I bought you one that was modeled after a _Spitfire._ You worked on it every day after you finished your homework.” Despite the painful dissonance of her thoughts, Moira snorted with fond exasperation. “Or _instead_ of your homework.”

“Almost failed my chem A level,” Lena agreed with a grin.

_But you didn’t. Did you? I wouldn’t let you get away with... but that didn’t happen, it couldn't've... unless..._

Moira put her free hand to her head, hissing from the pain of confusion. "Was this what Fareeha felt? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was _wrong..._ "

"No!" she insisted. "No, mum - I remember it too. Like you do. You wouldn't let me get away with it, would you? You made me buckle down, get to my revision. And I passed. _Go on_."

Moira nodded. “It wasn’t... you worked so hard on it. You were so proud to have finished it.” 

Lena’s voice went soft. “D’you remember what happened when I tried to fly it?”

“It... you had the radio frequency wrong,” Moira said hesitantly. “You lost control of it. All that work... the wings were _shattered_. You were so upset. Cried for an hour, I think.”

“ _Yes_. And you told me something,” Lena was holding her hand so tightly, like a drowning woman grasping on to a line from shore. “I remember. You remember too, don’t you?”

“We…” Moira coughed, tears spilling from her quicksilver eyes. “In science, we often learn more from our failures than our successes.”

“ _Yes_. So, maybe, on some level, it 'wasn't really real.' And maybe y’failed.” Lena picked up her hand again, and kissed the palm lightly. “But look what you learned.” Her voice turned from caring to something a bit harder. “Be honest. Look deep. If someone shot me, here, now, how would you feel?”

"Furious." Moira didn’t even think before the words flowed from her lips. “Horrified. Enraged. Murderously so.”

“Why?”

Her voice rose until it was almost a wail. “Because they would have shot my _daughter!_ ”

Lena’s eyes had filled with tears as well, and they flowed freely as she pulled her into a tight hug. 

“I love you, mum."

"I, I, I love you, too, _a leanbh_."

"I know," she smiled, sniffling. "And _that’s_ what matters.”

\-----

"I suppose this was your work," Moira said, to Sombra, who had shown up next.

"Yep," she said, matter of factly, amethyst-gold eyes firm. "Sure was."

"Is it why you came in? Did you... of course you did. This is why you came in on your own, the hard way. To keep yourself safe from... me."

"And Angela. It's why I brought Dr. Ngcobo in, too. You're both nuts."

"I thought Michael was Angela's idea."

"Eh. I encouraged her. And him, for that matter. I needed him. He was also a backup plan, if... well."

"I see." She sighed. "At least you, I have done no harm to, I think, but... you risked so much. Thank you."

Sombra shrugged. "Not gonna lie, doc. I'm not exactly fond of you, but…” She turned, as if just realizing what she’d heard. “Wait. Thank you?'

"Yes," Dr. O'Deorain said firmly. "Thank you."

Sombra reached up to scratch at the shaved side of her head, her brows knit with confusion. "I tore apart the little family you'd built and destroyed your weird empire, and... thank you?"

"We can't build a new world on a foundation of lies," Moira said as she met Sombra’s gaze. "Science is a search for the truth. I don't know how I... how the previous me... how I failed to understand that."

"That's the funny part, though," the hacker said. "I'm…” She gestured towards the door. “I told everybody else, I thought the inside - being _here_ \- would be horrible. I thought Speedy would be just... I didn't even know. Manic, then offline, like Widowmaker was, at first. But it wasn't. It was..." She shook her head. "Nice. Really nice. They _love_ you. Mostly. And I don't know why, or how, unless..."

Moira raised her eyebrows, waiting.

"It's like... you brought in the worst people in the world if you want to build an evil empire, and the best people in the world if you want them to stop you, and then you made them _more_ powerful, not less. Instead of you making them worse, Two-tone... it's like they made you better."

"Physician, heal thyself?" she asked, dryly.

The look Sombra gave her was almost indecipherable. "Maybe you did."

_Oh,_ the doctor thought as the realization struck her. _That’s what it looks like when she respects you._

\-----

Eventually Fareeha came in, saying nothing, just leaning against the wall, watching.

The silence stretched, and Moira felt as if something inside of her was stretching with it, being pulled taut until every breath felt like it would tear her apart.

Fareeha remained still and silent. Only the gleam of her opal eyes made it obvious that she was focused on the woman still convalescing in the bed.

Moira racked her brain, trying to find words to express what she felt, the deep, savage, tearing, _shame_ at what she'd done. She'd apologized before, but it had been - had _always_ been - insincere, at some level, because until now it had always been a means to an end, even if she'd hid that from herself, and not the remorse she felt now, not the remorse she felt, all the way down.

Fareeha's eyes narrowed, and somehow Moira knew she was aware of every single thought going through her mind.

The Huntress pushed herself off the wall and walked to the bedside, and Moira suppressed her tremble, and stood ready, accepting, as she looked into her eyes.

_Whatever she does,_ she thought, _I have earned it._

Fareeha closed her eyes, and seemed to be searching within herself for something before she finally raised a hand. 

Moira tensed, anticipating a strike, but instead Fareeha's hand came to rest on her cheek, the pad of her thumb wiping tears away.

"I forgive you," Fareeha murmured.

"Why?!" Moira asked, tears again welling in her eyes.

"Because _she_ is so very, deeply happy," she replied. "And, therefore - so am I." And then she was striding out of the door, while Moira tried to remember how to breathe again.

Angela waited, outside, and as the door closed behind Fareeha, she whispered, "...I helped."

"What?" Fareeha said, confused for a moment.

"It took me until now to realise... I _helped_ her." She looked up, ashamed, at Fareeha's opal eyes. "I... do you remember, when you finally, fully woke up?"

"Of course," she replied, looking into her wife's beautiful bronze irises. "Was that real?"

"I think so. I'm rather sure. Lena remembers it too. You had been... unstable. For weeks. I had been too, I think. But we... _Moira and I_... fixed you. And, I think, me. Using the same techniques I know now were used on all of us."

"Then, you said it yourself. If you 'fixed' me, when I was broken, then you also _saved_ me. You saved _us_." Fareeha smiled, and pulled Angela forward, for a kiss. "And there is nothing wrong in that to forgive."

The doctor smiled, and kissed her wife back, happily, even as she worked at a thought, a tail of an idea... _Yes, that's right... she used those drugs, her techniques... on herself, as well. It was the three of us. It was needed, to fix us both..._

"That's when, that's when she... changed," she whispered, to herself, but also to her wife, as she leaned back away from the kiss. "We... she, and I, _saved_ you, from what she'd done... and then... you and I... saved... _her?_ "

"I wonder, perhaps, if she meant that to happen," she rocketeer said, looking back towards the closed door. "Unconsciously."

"I suppose," the doctor said, "we'll never really know." She bit her lower lip. "She'll be ready to come home again in a few days. Are you... amenable, to that?"

"I've forgiven her. I have found her... comfortable, to be around, regardless, since I awoke." She snorted. "I even miss her, a bit. She's unexpectedly warm, and I like warm. I think... it may take a little time, but in the end, I think it will be fine."

"We're all going to be around for a long time," Dr. Ziegler said. "I suppose we had all better get very good at forgiveness."

"Agreed," Fareeha replied. "Why not start here?"

**Author's Note:**

> This concludes the Arc of Creation.
> 
> _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension_ begins in one week's time.
> 
> To follow this story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual eddas or sagas.
> 
> [[The complete _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Creation_ , in epub format](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3qj4lgseh0qdpbk/Of%20Gods%20and%20Monsters_%20The%20Arc%20of%20Creation%20-%20solarbird.epub?dl=1)]


End file.
